I don't really have energy to talk extensively, but I gotta say, mathematics is a painful field to go in as a woman.
Where I come from, anyway, as an undergraduate.
All your teachers are men. Every graduate you meet will be male. Some of them will make jibes at you for being female. You can never tell when they're complimenting you and when they're messing with you.
All the people who wrote every single theorem you learned were men. Period.
You don't have to walk two inches on the internet to find someone explaining that women just really aren't as good. Period. By very smart people, on very legitimate sites.
You have female celebrities writing
books like this to great acclaim, bringing mathematics to the young women who clearly wouldn't get it if it weren't all about dates, pink, and parties. Oh, and above all, boys.
For me, at least, I can never tell if I'm doing well or just being another uppity female who thinks she can do math and doesn't
really get it. The stress is murderous. During the school year, I often get a stomach ache that never really goes away.
If you say you're worried about getting into graduate school, everyone will tell you "it's okay. You'll get in. You're a girl," so that no matter how well you do, it will never be your work. Men usually get to say "It was because I worked hard." They don't have to confront their privilege. But yours is obvious and unfair.
I often have to remind myself that I don't want to date or get married or have children, because statistically those are characteristics of women who don't go far in mathematics. If you're a woman and want a family, you'd better not do math, is what the brochures say, all those articles to explain why you won't get very far in life. Here are the traps of being a woman, piled with all the traps of being a person that men can fall into. Better'd watch out. You don't take enough risks because you're a woman. You don't study as hard because you're a woman. You don't focus as well because you're a woman. You waste your time on stupid shit because you're a woman. You pay attention to your appearance because you're a woman. You're bad at math because you're a woman. You're going to make it only because you're a woman and they feel bad about not having even numbers or some shit, these folks are too PC, aren't they.
For me, at least, I end up being ashamed of being female and wishing that I had just had the good fortune to be born male, so that I could do this and enter in a society of my people. Instead, I feel like I'm worming my way into somewhere I don't belong. A society of men, where my only recourse is to be the absolute top at all times, in everything. The best in understanding the social hierarchy. The most enthusiastic. The one with the clearest proofs. The one with the best ideas. The one with the most confidence. And otherwise, I won't make it anywhere.
Because claims of pseudointellectualism or not, appearances do matter. I've already made the mistake of wearing a woman's face and a woman's body while trying to do math. It's something I have to actively work to negate.